Songfacts®:

• In "Evil (Is Going On)," Howlin' Wolf encourages men to trust their instincts. If they sense something isn't right at home, they need to call right away. If they get no answer, they need to do whatever they can to get back there, because she's probably cheating.
  
  If you make it to your house
  Knock on the front door
  Run 'round to the back
  You'll catch him just before he go
  
  Wolf never specifies what to do if a man catches the proverbial rooster in the hen house, but one imagines it wouldn't be pretty.
• One verse's lingo is lost on most modern listeners:
  
  Well, if you call her on the telephone
  And she answers awful slow
  Grab the first thing smokin'
  If you have to hobo
  
  To "hobo" meant to illegally hop a train (the "first thing smoking").
• Willie Dixon, one of the formative creative forces behind Chicago blues, wrote this song and also played bass on the track. Hubert Sumlin and Jody Williams played guitars. Otis Spann was on piano. Earl Phillips played drums.
• Howlin' Wolf recorded the song at Chess Records on May 25, 1954, and released it as a single on July 26 with "Baby How Long" as the B-side. The song was later included on the 1959 compilation album Moanin' In The Moonlight.
  
  Wolf recorded it again for The Howlin' Wolf Album in 1969 and again released it as a single. On this second release, it became his last single to crack the charts, reaching #43 on the Billboard R&B chart.
• In 1967, Canned Heat covered "Evil (Is Going Down)" on their self-titled debut album.